Davy’s Residence, 44 Beacon Street. Memorial portrait. Two subjects. Special arrangements. Payment $50. $50 in 1895 was an extraordinary sum, roughly $1,800 in modern currency, far more than a typical memorial photograph would cost. Helen searched for more information about Thomas Blackwell and found his personal diary which had been donated to the society in 1957 by his granddaughter.
She requested the diary from storage and when it arrived she carefully turned the fragile pages to June 1895. The entry for June 7th 1895 was longer than most. received urgent summons to the Davy’s household on Beacon Hill. The situation there is among the most disturbing I have encountered in 20 years of memorial photography. The younger daughter, Rose, died of scarlet fever 4 days ago.
The older daughter, Lily, has also contracted the disease and will not survive long, according to the family physician. But the true horror is this. Lily has refused to leave her deceased sister’s side. She sleeps beside the body. She holds the dead child’s hand. She speaks to her as if she were alive. The mother is too overcome with grief to intervene.
The father is weak from his own illness. They sent for me because Lily requested it. The child wants a photograph of herself with her sister so mama can remember us together. I tried to explain that we could create a traditional memorial portrait, but Lily became hysterical. She demanded the photograph show both of them alive and together.
I posed them holding hands as Lily insisted. The older girl never stopped crying, but she tried to hold still for the exposure. She whispered to her sister throughout, telling her to stay calm, stay still just a little longer. The younger girl, of course, remained perfectly still. I completed the work in half an hour and left as quickly as possible.
The father paid me double my usual rate and begged me never to speak of this. I will honor that request. But I will never forget the sight of that living child clutching her dead sister’s hand, trying so desperately to pretend everything was normal, trying so desperately to keep a promise she should never have been asked to make.
Helen sat back, her hands trembling. The photograph suddenly made terrible sense. This wasn’t a deception meant to fool others. It was a gift from a dying girl to her griefstricken parents. A lie told out of love. A final attempt to give them one memory that wasn’t drenched in tragedy. Lily had known she was dying.
She had known this photograph would be the last thing she ever did. And she had used it to create an illusion, a moment frozen in time where both Davey’s daughters were together, alive and whole. Lily Davies died 3 days after the photograph was taken. Helen found her death certificate and medical records. The attending physician, Dr.
Samuel Morrison, noted. Patient declined rapidly following prolonged exposure to deceased sibling. Scarlet fever complicated by exhaustion and grief. Patient refused all food and water in final 48 hours. Last words. I kept my promise. Lily was buried beside Rose on June 11th, 1895. The joint funeral was attended by over 200 people.
The Boston Globe reported that Elellanar Davies, the girl’s mother, collapsed during the service and had to be carried from the church. Helen searched for what happened to the parents after their daughter’s deaths. The records were heartbreaking. Eleanor Davies never recovered. She was admitted to Mlan asylum in August 1895, diagnosed with acute melancholia and nervous prostration.
